An editorial by Jason Rhian discusses NASA's handling of the Orb-3 (Orbital Sciences) and CRS-7 (SpaceX) accidents. Both were Commercial Resupply Service missions to the International Space Station. SpaceX intends to fly NASA astronauts using Falcon rockets within the next couple of years:
A recent post appearing on the blog Parabolic Arc noted NASA will not be releasing a public report on the findings of the SpaceX Falcon 9 CRS-7 explosion that resulted in the loss of the launch vehicle, the Dragon spacecraft, and the roughly $118 million in supplies and hardware the spacecraft was carrying. The post also notes that the Orb-3 accident was handled differently by NASA, but were the two accidents so distinct as to warrant two totally dissimilar approaches?
The premise of the Parabolic Arc report was somewhat inaccurate. NASA didn't refuse to issue a public report; the truth is, no public report was ever produced. NASA officials noted on Wednesday, July 19, that, as the agency was not required to create such a report, one was not generated.
When asked about the discrepancy between the two incidents, NASA officials noted that the Orb-3 failure had occurred on a NASA launch pad (at the agency's Wallops Flight Facility Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport's Pad-0A – which is managed by Virginia Space, not NASA). Whereas the Falcon 9 CRS-7 mission had launched from SpaceX's own pad (SLC-40, which is not their pad it was leased to them by the U.S. Air Force) on a commercial flight licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Therefore, NASA was not required to produce a report on the CRS-7 accident. However, Orb-3 was also licensed by the FAA, making this distinction tenuous.
The problem submitted by SpaceX as the root cause of the CRS-7 accident was a failed strut in the rocket's second stage. SpaceX stated that it had fixed the problem and, for all intents and purposes, the matter was dropped.
Fast forward 14 months and another Falcon 9, with the $185 million Amos-6 spacecraft, exploded while just sitting on the pad, taking the rocket, its payload, and some of the ground support facilities at Canaveral's Space Launch Complex 40 with it. Since the Amos-6 accident, SpaceX has moved its operations to Kennedy Space Center's historic Launch Complex 39A, under the 20-year lease with NASA that SpaceX entered into in April of 2014.
With limited information made available to the public, conspiracy theories, including those involving it being struck by a drone and snipers hired by SpaceX's competition, sprung up in articles and on comment boards on sites such as NASASpaceFlight.com and elsewhere regarding the cause of the Amos-6 explosion. This demonstrated the need for a transparent accounting of accidents involving public-private efforts such as NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contract.
Extra: Meanwhile, NASA has growing confidence in the test flight schedule for Boeing and SpaceX's crewed flights: http://spacenews.com/nasa-and-companies-express-growing-confidence-in-commercial-crew-schedules/
Related: NASA Advisory Committee Skeptical of SpaceX Manned Refueling Plan
SpaceX Identifies Cause of September Explosion
After Months of Delay Following Explosion, SpaceX Finally Launches More Satellites
Problems With SpaceX Falcon 9 Design Could Delay Manned Missions
Elon Musk Accuses Tesla Employee of Being a Union Agitator
SpaceX Technician says Concerns about Test Results Got Him Fired
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Experts advising NASA are not impressed with SpaceX's plan to fuel rockets while astronauts are aboard, particularly in the wake of the September 1st explosion:
"This is a hazardous operation," Space Station Advisory Committee Chairman Thomas Stafford, a former NASA astronaut and retired Air Force general, said during a conference call on Monday. Stafford said the group's concerns were heightened after an explosion of an unmanned SpaceX rocket while it was being fueled on Sept. 1. Causes of that explosion remain under investigation.
Members of the eight-member group, including veterans of NASA's Gemini, Apollo and space shuttle programs, noted that all previous rockets carrying people into space were fueled before astronauts got to the launch pad. "Everybody there, and particularly the people who had experience over the years, said nobody is ever near the pad when they fuel a booster," Stafford said, referring to an earlier briefing the group had about SpaceX's proposed fueling procedure.
SpaceX needs NASA approval of its launch system before it can put astronauts into space. NASA said on Tuesday it was "continuing its evaluation of the SpaceX concept for fueling the Falcon 9 for commercial crew launches. The results of the company's Sept. 1 mishap investigation will be incorporated into NASA's evaluation."
SpaceX posted updates about the explosion on Oct. 28. The helium loading system appears to have caused the problem. SpaceX wants to resume launches before the end of the year.
Elon Musk appeared on CNBC and offered a definitive explanation for his company's recent launch explosion:
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says that his company has finally gotten to the bottom of the September 1st Falcon 9 explosion — claiming it was the "toughest puzzle" they've ever had to solve. And now that the problem is known, he expects SpaceX to return to flight in mid-December.
Speaking on CNBC yesterday, Musk said "it basically involves liquid helium, advanced carbon fiber composites, and solid oxygen. Oxygen so cold that it actually enters solid phase." So what does that mean exactly? Musk gave some hints a little while ago during a speech he gave to the National Reconnaissance Office. According to a transcript received by Space News, he argued that the supercooled liquid oxygen that SpaceX uses as propellant actually became so cold that it turned into a solid. And that's not supposed to happen.
This solid oxygen may have had a bad reaction with another piece of hardware — one of the vehicle's liquid helium pressure vessels. Three of these vessels sit inside the upper oxygen tank that holds the supercooled liquid oxygen propellant. They're responsible for filling and pressurizing the empty space that's left when the propellant leaves the tank. The vessels are also over wrapped with a carbon fiber composite material. The solid oxygen that formed could have ignited with the carbon, causing the explosion that destroyed the rocket.
Musk called the issue one that had "never been encountered before in the history of rocketry." One of SpaceX's customers, Inmarsat, may find an alternative for one of its upcoming satellite launches. SpaceX launches could resume mid-December.
For comparison's sake, at standard pressure:
- Liquid Helium: 4 K (about −269 °C or −452.2 °F).
- Solid Oxygen: 54.36 K (−218.79 °C, −361.82 °F).
- Solid Nitrogen: 63.15 K (−210.00 °C, −346.00 °F)
- Liquid Nitrogen: 77.355 K (−195.795 °C, −320.431 °F)
- Liquid Oxygen: 90.19 K (−182.96 °C; −297.33 °F)
- Dry Ice (Solid CO2): 194.65 K (−78.5 °C; −109.3 °F).
SpaceX is back in business:
SpaceX returned to flight Saturday after a 4½-month hiatus. The private space exploration company headed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 9:54 a.m. PT, taking 10 satellites into space for voice and data company Iridium. It marked the company's first launch since a Falcon 9 rocket exploded at Cape Canaveral, Florida, in September.
The launch's success Saturday was made even sweeter by a smooth return landing for the Falcon 9 rocket's first stage booster. It safely returned from space and glided to a landing on a seafaring platform, known as a drone ship.
The hosted launch coverage is available on YouTube.
Also at NPR, Reuters, and NYT.
SpaceX is no stranger to delays. The private space firm headed by Elon Musk has pushed back is launch schedule several times in the last few years after rockets have been lost. Now, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) says there may be an issue with the Falcon 9 rocket that delays the expected launch of the first manned mission in 2018.
The report from the GAO (just a preliminary release for now) cites issues with the turboblades used in Falcon 9 rockets. These are the components that move fuel from the tanks to engines. The blades apparently have a tendency to develop cracks, which could cause catastrophic failure if they develop or worsen during a launch.
According to NASA acting administrator Robert Lightfoot (who also has an amazing name) says the agency and SpaceX have been aware of the issue for months (or possibly years). NASA expressed concern to SpaceX that the turboblade cracks presented too great a risk to launch manned missions. Cracks have been found in the turboblades as recently as September 2016.
SpaceX says it has been conducting extensive testing on the Falcon 9 rocket and believes it to be safe. It has made changes to the design of the turboblades in an effort to mitigate the cracking issues. Although, the company may still undertake a full redesign of the blades depending on the upcoming GAO report. If that happens, the manned launch will almost certainly be delayed.
Source:
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/243883-problems-falcon-9-design-delay-manned-missions
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has accused one of his employees of being a union agitator working on behalf of the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW):
Earlier today, a Tesla employee wrote a post on Medium alleging that he and fellow Tesla employees at the company's Fremont, California manufacturing facility endure "excessive mandatory overtime," lower-than-average pay, and frequent injuries. Tesla CEO Elon Musk responded to the claims in a series of private Twitter messages to Gizmodo by calling the employee, who wrote under the name Jose Moran, a pro-union agitator working on behalf of the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW).
"Our understanding is that this guy was paid by the UAW to join Tesla and agitate for a union," Musk says. The Tesla chief goes on to call Moran an employee of UAW, working on behalf of the union and not Tesla. When asked about his stance on unions, Musk describes Tesla as a "union neutral" company.
Meanwhile, Reuters reported that Tesla has paused production at its California assembly plant to prepare for the production of the company's long-awaited Model 3 sedan.
A former Space Exploration Technologies Corp. technician told a jury he was fired for complaining to management that rocket-building test protocols weren't followed and results were falsified, jeopardizing the safety of eventual manned trips into orbit.
Jason Blasdell claims he took his concerns as high as SpaceX founder and Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk in the months before he was terminated in 2014, purportedly for being "disruptive."
A Los Angeles state court jury will be asked to decide whether Blasdell had good reason to believe testing documents were falsified and whether his firing was unjustified.
"He went up the chain of command as he had learned in the Marines was the proper procedure," Blasdell's lawyer, Carney Shegerian, told jurors in his opening statement Tuesday. "He had nothing personal to benefit from this other than to do the right thing."
[...] California Superior Court Judge William Fahey has ruled that the jury won't be second-guessing the scientific decisions of SpaceX's engineers or the business judgment of its managers. The trial is expected to take two weeks.
"Jason Blasdell is not a whistle-blower and this is not a whistle-blower case," SpaceX's lawyer, Lynne Hermle, said in her opening statement.
Source: Bloomberg
Have you ever been in this kind of situation? What did you do? How do you weigh the risks to the product, others, and yourself?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2017, @05:48AM (1 child)
What accidents?
-NASA
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2017, @11:49AM
Nobody knew rocket science was so complicated!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2017, @06:29AM (5 children)
The cause of the SpaceX failure was quickly discovered. It was a defective strut which performed well under specifications. This was remedied for future missions. The cause of the Orbital Sciences failure was never able to be determined. Failure isn't a problem. However, failure without being able to learn from it is a major problem. SpaceX isn't going to suffer from another failing strut, yet whatever issue caused the failure of the Orbital Sciences is something that could very well occur again. This is why launch companies take months out of operational schedules (at great loss) to discover the exact cause of any sort of rocket 'anomaly.' The failure to track down that anomaly by Orbital Sciences is an issue of major concern.
The article also tries to imply that these sort of explosions would pose risk to human spaceflight. They would not. This is the entire point of launch abort systems. No matter how careful and cautious a company is, mistakes will happen. We've been flying planes for more than 100 years and have done millions of flights. Yet we still get failures there, and that's a technology that's a million times less complex (and explosive) than rocketry. And consequently for the indefinite future preparing for the possibility of failure will remain an integral part of human rated spaceflight. None of these incidents would have posed a threat to human passengers thanks to launch escape systems.
(Score: 1) by Virindi on Thursday July 27 2017, @07:41AM (1 child)
Launch abort tends to not be the safest procedure. While surviving the explosion of the launch rocket may be possible, it is completely unreasonable to describe that event as posing no additional risk to the crew.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2017, @08:08AM
Oh I completely agree there. I am of course just talking about fatalities. Only one launch escape has ever been executed. It was in the early 80s on a Soyuz capsule and the crew experienced upwards of 15gs of acceleration. That's one hell of a roller coaster ride, but it's a lot better than getting incinerated and disintegrated. It's really absurd and inexplicable that the Space Shuttle was not designed with such mechanisms. One can only imagine how much further our space program could have advanced if we didn't have the shift to extreme risk aversion caused by those completely needless deaths.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2017, @09:12AM (1 child)
This article is shit. A simple google through reddits /r/space comments regarding it would easily explain that the second "sitting on the ground" explosion was solved as well. And as for "people"? That's why they don't put people on ANY launch ANYWHERE until the last minute. Because even pre-mixing tanks can lead to explosions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2017, @11:30AM
If Musky says it's solved, it's solved! Send them to the moon, now!
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday July 27 2017, @06:23PM
Turns out rocket science is hard, news at 11.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2017, @12:38PM
Seems like they may be lacking technically and perhaps contractually.
X may hold a lot of cards here. Both the raw data from the vehicles and i would bet NDA's.
OTOH, it's in X's interest to understand and fix the problem.
It does seem like eventually either NASA or NTSB will be able to analyse and publish private space mishaps.
Eventually may be after the technology is well known and publishing is not a proprietary nightmare.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2017, @04:44PM (2 children)
if i'm not paying for it and the people volunteer they can shoot them at the moon like a sick dart game for all i care.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2017, @06:01PM (1 child)
if you're an American taxpayer, you are paying for it. SpaceX is funded mostly by NASA contracts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2017, @09:26PM
SpaceX had 9 launches in 2016. 3 were for NASA. They've had 10 launches so far this year, 2 were for NASA. The US taxpayer pays Boeing/Lockheed a billion dollars a year as part of a 'launch capability contract.' They get that money for literally doing nothing. It's supposed to be a sort of hedging to ensure launch capability for military use. In reality, it's just corruption. SpaceX gets no such thing. They only get paid for providing launch services. On top of all of this the US taxpayer pays about $400 million per Boeing/Lockheed launch. We pay about $100 million per SpaceX launch.